The following article is a supplement to the MRC Report: The Biden Administration Waged War on Free Speech with 57 Censorship Initiatives.
Initiative #18 The $16 Million Media Literacy Grant
Type of Censorship: Grant
Agencies Involved:
- Department of Commerce
- National Institute of Science & Technology (NIST)
- National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA)
Summary:
In the final weeks of the Biden administration, the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Science & Technology (NIST) rushed to funnel even more money into censorship.
NIST signed a $16 million pledge to fund the Washington State Department of Commerce's effort to identify so-called “misinformation” and enforce online “etiquette.” The grant was to be administered as part of a “media literacy” program — a euphemism for censorship that the Biden administration had financed before.
Buried in the details of the grant, the federal Department of Commerce admitted that its Washington equivalent would redistribute the money it gave to media literacy organizations, such as the censorship at the University of Washington and Western Washington University. The money NIST rushed to give to censorship actually came from funds appropriated for the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA), an entirely different agency in the Department of Commerce.
Key Individuals:
- Alan Davidson, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications & Information
- Laurie E. Locascio, NIST Director / Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards & Technology
- Gina Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce
